Roppongi Art Night 2024: Sota Kodera, Filler

Date

September 27 (Fri), 2024 - September 29 (Sun), 2024

Time

10:00-20:00 (until 18:00 on 9/29)
*It may close earlier due to bad weather condition etc.

Venue

The National Art Center, Tokyo and other locations in Roppongi

Organized by

The National Art Center, Tokyo

Sota Kodera
Filler
2024
Humans, signboards, artificial turf, concrete blocks

Sota Kodera, who has coined the term Iru-ha to describe his work (the Japanese word iru means “to be” and refers to living beings, while -ha corresponds to the “-ism” in names of art movements), has staged a number of performance-installations involving prolonged display of his own body. However, Kodera himself is absent from this work, Filler. Instead, the performance is delegated to six signboard holders deployed along the street leading from Roppongi Station to the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT). Artificial turf and another signboard are installed in the NACT lobby.

The Filler of the title describes things that fill spaces in various ways. The term can refer to material used to patch up cracks, or to sounds such as “umm…” uttered during pauses when speaking. In this work, the artist takes a multi-layered approach to the practice of filling existing frameworks or voids.

Kodera derived the concept of Filler from filler text, i.e. meaningless text used in publishing and graphic design as a placeholder, occupying areas scheduled to contain text while layouts are being finalized. The Japanese texts on the roadside signboards are fragments of a somewhat garbled automatic translation of the industry-standard dummy text, a Latin paragraph beginning “Lorem ipsum...” This process further dismantles an already meaningless message, making it hard to identify any coherent argument, while at the same time words such as “labor” and “suffering” hint at the work’s underlying themes.

Signboard holders represent a form of labor that fills cracks in the rules governing public displays. While advertising on public roadways is strictly regulated, there is a loophole in that a signboard classified as someone’s personal possession is not deemed a public display. This means that the person holding the signboard effectively functions as a human filler. In this case, the signboard holders are staff recruited by the museum through public outreach, under Kodera’s guidance, and employed under a quasi-mandate contract (a contract delegating non-judicial tasks to a proxy). They receive a stipend on a par with typical part-time signboard holders, and act simultaneously as performers and as laborers.

Many elements of the work, including the text and the signboard holders, were shaped through negotiations with various parties and adherence to existing norms and regulations. For example, the sign designs are based on templates often used in the real estate sector. Placement of the signboard holders was determined through discussions with the police and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and the terms of their contracts are in line with NACT policies. The artificial turf fills the largest feasible area, calculated based on its relation to foot-traffic pathways and exhibition spaces. In this way, the work’s contours are defined not positively (expanding outward from within) but negatively (constrained by externally imposed limits), with space maximized within these confines. However, searching for meanings or outcomes within this domain only reveals an empty tautology: a sign bearing the work’s title merely points the way to another sign, sidestepping attempts at interpretation.

Kodera does not appear in the work, and instead of making space for himself to occupy, he has prepared locations for people, signs, artificial turf, and words to exist / fill. By packing the designated spaces with filler, he squanders their potential in brilliant fashion.

SOTA KODERA FILLER | PROGRAMS | 六本木アートナイト2024 | Roppongi Art Night 2024

Sota Kodera was born in 1996 in Tokyo, graduated from the Graduate School of Art and Design at Musashino Art University in 2021 with a major in oil painting. He explores new forms of performance and installation with the term Iru-ha to describe his work, exhibiting the human body (often his own) as a part of artwork. His recent exhibitions include EASTEAST_TOKYO 2023 (Science Museum, 2023), Interfacial Body (CON_, 2022), Stone Tape: An Exhibition You Will Be Damned If You See (PARA, 2022), and Tyokyo City (Token Art Center, 2022).